Bruegel’s two monkeys

This is what I see in my dreams about final exams:
two monkeys, chained to the floor, sit on the windowsill,
the sky behind them flutters,
the sea is taking its bath.

The exam is the history of Mankind.

I stammer and hedge.

One monkey stares and listens with mocking disdain,
the other seems to be dreaming away —
but when it’s clear I don’t know what to say
he prompts me with a gentle
clinking of his chain.


Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012): Bruegel’s Two Monkeys , translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh in Szymborska: View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems (1995)